Feb. 16
YOU DEAL WITH GOD
"I will not execute the fierceness of mine anger, I will not return
to destroy Ephraim: for I am God, and not man" Hos. 11:9
The Lord thus makes known His sparing mercies. It may be that the
reader is now under heavy displeasure, and everything threatens his
speedy doom. Let the text hold him up from despair. The Lord now
invites you to consider your ways, and confess your sins. If He had
been man, He would long ago have cut you off. If He were now to act
after the manner of men, it would be a word and a blow and then there
would be an end of you: but it is not so, for "as high as the heavens
are above the earth, so high are his ways above your ways."
You rightly judge that He is angry, but He keepeth not His anger
for ever: if you turn from sin to Jesus, God will turn from wrath.
Because God is God, and not man, there is still forgiveness for you,
even though you may be steeped up to your throat in iniquity. You have
a God to deal with, and not a hard man, nor even a merely just man. No
human being could have patience with you: you would have wearied out
an angel, as you have wearied your sorrowing father; but God is
longsuffering. Come and try Him at once. Confess, believe, and turn
from your evil way, and you shall be saved.